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There is effectively no testing.
True, but until testing can be done at scale (and with faster turnaround) there's little point of doing any kind of widespread testing.
At the current capacity of 4,000 tests a day it would take about 18 weeks to test all of the NHS frontline staff, at which point a significant number of those would need to be retested as they were negative first time round and need retesting.
At 100,000 tests a day (25 times the current capacity) it would take nigh on 2 years to test everyone in the UK.
There's also two different tests:
a) Does the person have the specific coronavirus present in a nasal swab (i.e. are they possibly contagious)?
b) Does the person have the associated antibodies in sufficient quantities to demostrate immunity?A person could be positive for (a) and also possess the antibodies for (b), but be completely asymptomatic. How long do you quarantine them for? They might be 14 days away from being non-contagious or just a day or so. Impossible to tell.
A person could be negative (a) because they've only just contracted the virus and it hasn't had time to multiply enough for a positive test. (b) would be negative. Would you let them work despite the fact that in a few days they'll be contagious and not displaying symptoms (if at all) for another 5 days?
It's more complicated than "just faaaaking run abaaat and do some testing".
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Greenbank
RANT INCOMING:
Guess what THERE ARE NO INTERVENTIONS AT ANY MEANINGFUL LEVEL
People are interacting everywhere. Infection vectors anywhere you look. In school playgrounds. On the bus. In panic buying queues. Pensioners everywhere. There is effectively no testing.
PLUS there is up to a 2-week incubation period - 2 weeks ago, were they even telling us to wash our hands?
These clowns have absolutely no idea what is happening in the real world. We are going to be worse than Italy :(